56 Facts About Handel

George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer well known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concertos.

Handel received his training in Halle and worked as a composer in Hamburg and Italy before settling in London in 1712, where he spent the bulk of his career and became a naturalised British subject in 1727.

Handel was strongly influenced both by the middle-German polyphonic choral tradition and by composers of the Italian Baroque.

Handel is consistently recognized as one of the greatest composers of his age.

Handel started three commercial opera companies to supply the English nobility with Italian opera.

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Handel composed more than forty opere serie over a period of more than thirty years.

Handel was born in 1685 in Halle, Duchy of Magdeburg .

Handel's father was an eminent barber-surgeon who served the court of Saxe-Weissenfels and the Margraviate of Brandenburg.

Georg Handel was born at the beginning of the war and was apprenticed to a barber in Halle at the age of 14 after his father died.

Handel was the second child of this marriage; the first son was stillborn.

Whether Handel remained there, and if he did for how long, is unknown, but many biographers suggest that he was withdrawn from school by his father, based on the characterization of him by Handel's first biographer, John Mainwaring.

Handel's father engaged the organist at the Halle parish church, the young Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow, to instruct Handel.

When Zachow discovered the talent of Handel, he introduced him "to a vast collection of German and Italian music, which he possessed, sacred and profane, vocal and instrumental compositions of different schools, different styles, and of every master".

Schoelcher for example has Handel travelling to Berlin at 11, meeting both Bononcini and Attilio Ariosti in Berlin and then returning at the direction of his father.

Handel did not enrol in the faculty of law, although he almost certainly attended lectures.

That authentic manuscript sources do not exist and that Handel never recycled any material from these works makes their authenticity doubtful.

Burrows dates this trip to 1702 or 1703 and concluded that since Handel turned down Frederick's offer to subsidise his musical education in Italy, Handel was no longer able to expect preferment within Brandenburg-Prussia.

The question remains why Handel rejected the King's offer, given that Italy was the centre of opera.

Lang suggests that influenced by the teachings of Thomasius, Handel's character was such that he was unable to make himself subservient to anyone, even a king.

Handel produced two other operas, Daphne and Florindo, in 1708.

Handel left for Rome and since opera was banned in the Papal States, composed sacred music for the Roman clergy.

Handel composed cantatas in pastoral style for musical gatherings in the palaces of duchess Aurora Sanseverino one of the most influential patrons from the Kingdom of Naples, and cardinals Pietro Ottoboni, Benedetto Pamphili and Carlo Colonna.

Handel visited Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici and her husband in Dusseldorf on his way to London.

Handel went back to Halle twice, to attend the wedding of his sister and the baptism of her daughter, but decided to settle permanently in England in 1712.

Handel received a yearly income of £200 from Queen Anne after composing for her the Utrecht Te Deum and Jubilate, first performed in 1713.

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In 1717, Handel became house composer at Cannons in Middlesex, where he laid the cornerstone for his future choral compositions in the Chandos Anthems.

Handel himself invested in the South Sea Company in 1716, when its share prices were low and sold them before the "bubble" burst in 1720.

In 1720, Handel invested in the slave-trading Royal African Company, following in the steps of his patron .

Handel travelled to Dresden to attend the newly built opera.

Handel saw Teofane by Antonio Lotti, and engaged members of the cast for the Royal Academy of Music, founded by a group of aristocrats to assure themselves a constant supply of baroque opera or opera seria.

Handel's operas are filled with da capo arias, such as Svegliatevi nel core.

In 1727, Handel was commissioned to write four anthems for the Coronation ceremony of King George II.

In 1728, John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, which made fun of the type of Italian opera Handel had popularised in London, premiered at Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre and ran for 62 consecutive performances, the longest run in theatre history up to that time.

In 1729, Handel became joint manager of the theatre with John James Heidegger.

Handel travelled to Italy to engage new singers and composed seven more operas, among them the comic masterpiece Partenope and the "magic" opera Orlando.

Handel reworked his Acis and Galatea which then became his most successful work ever.

Handel failed to compete with the Opera of the Nobility, who engaged musicians such as Johann Adolph Hasse, Nicolo Porpora and the famous castrato Farinelli.

On Christmas Eve Handel finished the score of Faramondo, but its composition was interrupted by that of the Funeral Anthem for Queen Caroline.

Handel composed music for a musical clock with a pipe organ built by Charles Clay; it was bought by Gerrit Braamcamp and was in 2016 acquired by the Museum Speelklok in Utrecht.

Handel gave up the opera business, while he enjoyed more success with his English oratorios.

Handel became sure of himself, broader in his presentation, and more diverse in his composition.

Handel tended more and more to replace Italian soloists by English ones.

The piece was a great success and it encouraged Handel to make the transition from writing Italian operas to English choral works.

Handel secured a balance between soloists and chorus which he never surpassed.

In recognition of his patronage, Handel was made a governor of the Hospital the day after his initial concert.

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Handel bequeathed a copy of Messiah to the institution upon his death.

Handel died in 1759 at home in Brook Street, at the age of 74.

Handel owned an art collection that was auctioned posthumously in 1760.

Handel's compositions include 42 operas, 25 oratorios, more than 120 cantatas, trios and duets, numerous arias, odes and serenatas, solo and trio sonatas, 18 concerti grossi, and 12 organ concertos.

The catalogue has achieved wide acceptance and is used as the modern numbering system, with each of Handel's works designated an "HWV" number, for example Messiah is catalogued as "HWV 56".

Handel's works were collected and preserved by two men: Sir Samuel Hellier, a country squire whose musical acquisitions form the nucleus of the Shaw-Hellier Collection, and the abolitionist Granville Sharp.

Original form of his name, Georg Friedrich Handel, is generally used in Germany and elsewhere, but he is known as "Haendel" in France.

Handel has generally been accorded high esteem by fellow composers, both in his own time and since.

Handel first wrote some variations on the theme, which he titled Variations on Handel's 'The Harmonious Blacksmith'.

In 1942, Handel was the subject of the British biographical film The Great Mr Handel directed by Norman Walker and starring Wilfrid Lawson.

Handel was portrayed by Jeroen Krabbe as the antagonist in the film Farinelli .